About six years ago in the fall a hunter shot a squirrel, which lodged between two small twigs, the size of a lead pencil. This being near the man's house, he watched the squirrel each week.
The first spring the twigs grew, and the squirrel remained in the position it lodged.
The second year the twigs, which had grown to be the size of a man's fingers, died; so did the limb die.
The third year no change, but during the fourth year the tail of the squirrel dropped off, and the man noticed no change the fifth, but the sixth year he secured the limb and squirrel and found, to his surprise, that the squirrel had become a white oak bump.
Under the microscope could be seen the hairs in the wood. The places for the eyes and ears were perfect, and where the chin and forelegs had touched the twig it grew to them. The legs were intact, but the feet had disappeared. The body of the squirrel had grown to be about four inches in diameter.
What puzzled the gentleman who gave us this is, through what process could the dead animal become wood? As proof of the story, we can furnish the name of the man who has the "freak of nature" in his possession, and who watched it from the time it first lodged.—Smith's Grove (Kentucky) Times.
THE REAL WASHINGTON.
By Max Adeler.
"You say," I remarked to the old negro who drove the hack, "that you were General Washington's body-servant?"
"Dat's so! Dat's jes so, mossa. I done waited on Washington sence he was so high—no bigger 'n a small chile."